All My Rage

by Sabaa Tahir

then I don’t know why I’m broken.” “You’re not broken.” “A part of me is broken,” I say. “Saying I’m not erases the fact that someone did something horrible to me. It erases that I’ve survived. Because yeah, maybe I’m broken, but I’m strong, too.”

“Or I’d have given her a—” “Anger is a sin,” Imam Shafiq calls from the kitchen. “Then God shouldn’t have put so much of it inside me,” Khadija retorts. Shafiq laughs.

Rage can fuel you. But grief gnaws at you slow, a termite nibbling at your soul until you’re a whisper of what you used to be.